Origins of the Abolitionist Movement (SQA National 5 History): Revision Note

Summary

‘An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade’ became law on March 25th 1807. The Act introduced fines of £100 per enslaved person found on a ship for any captain who continued with the trade. The act brought an end to British involvement in the trade in enslaved Africans, but did not make slavery illegal. Direct British involvement in slavery would continue until 1833. It was only in 1838 that all enslaved people in the British Empire gained their freedom.  The Abolition Act of 1807 was the result of decades of campaigning to abolish the trade.

The abolition movement in Britain had its origins in the 1760s and the campaign slowly gained increased public support throughout the 1770s and 1780s.

First, abolitionists campaigned for the end of British involvement in the trade in enslaved African people, and then the abolition of slavery as a whole. It was felt that abolishing the trade was a more realistic and achievable first step.

Role of the Quakers in abolition

• Some of the first people to campaign against the trade  were the Quakers, a religious group also known as the Society of Friends

  • The Quakers were Christians focused on peace and equality

• In 1761, they had banned anyone involved in the trade in enslaved African people from joining their society

• The first petition to end the trade in enslaved African people was in 1783, when 273 Quakers petitioned Parliament to end the trade

• The Quakers also published anti-slavery books and pamphlets

  • They organised visits to private schools to talk about their anti-slavery message

  • This included Eton and Harrow, where many pupils were the sons of those who had made fortunes from the trade

• In 1787, Quakers played a key role in establishing the Committee for the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade

  • The Society initially consisted of 12 men, nine of them Quakers

    • Quakers were banned from standing in Parliament

    • This meant the non-Quaker members of the group (Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson) were chosen to represent the committee

    • Later, William Wilberforce was recruited by Thomas Clarkson to be the voice of the movement in Parliament

The Case of the Zong

• The case of the Zong was a court case brought about by the Liverpool-based insurance company, Gilbert and Co

  • William Gregson, the owner of the slave ship the Zong, submitted an insurance claim for £3990

  • The claim was for the cost of 133 enslaved African people who died on a voyage in 1781

• The ship’s crew stated that 133 sick enslaved African people had been thrown overboard

  • They claimed this was to protect the crew and the remaining enslaved people from dehydration as a result of low fresh water supplies

• Insurers discovered that when the ship had arrived in Jamaica, there were still 1910 litres of drinking water on board the ship

• The ship’s log – the written record of everything that happened on the voyage – had disappeared

• The case came to court in March 1783, but the insurers lost

• The jury saw nothing wrong in the killing of African people to save the crew

  • John Lee, a lawyer defending the crew, argued that

• No officer or crew member was ever prosecuted for the deliberate killing of 133 enslaved people

• The case became more widely reported due to the actions of abolitionists like Granville Sharp

  • Members of the public were shocked by the cruelty suffered by the enslaved African people on board the ship

  • The case became a major feature of the abolitionist movement

The Sons of Africa

• By the 1780s, there were several formerly enslaved African people living in Britain, including Ottabah Cugoano and Oladuah Equiano

• In 1786, along with other formerly enslaved Africans, they established the Sons of Africa - a pressure group campaigning for abolition

• The evidence of Black abolitionists such as Equiano and Cugoano was crucial in ending British involvement in the trade in enslaved Africans

  • Both men published autobiographies detailing their experiences of enslavement

  • These gave the British public an insight into the experiences of enslaved people, both during the middle passage and on the plantations

• Cugoano and Equiano also helped to challenge racist stereotypes towards African people that were widely held at the time

• Equiano toured Britain to promote his book and spoke at abolitionist meetings

• Cugoano argued that slavery was morally wrong and that every white man in Britain bore some responsibility for it

  • Cugoano wanted Britain to set an example by becoming the first country to abolish slavery completely

  • Cugoano regularly challenged other abolitionists because he did not believe the campaign was making enough progress

The role of women in the abolition campaign

• Women played a crucial role in the origins of the abolition campaign

  • It was one of the first examples of mass political campaigning by women in Britain

• Women were key in organising the sugar boycott

  • Over 300,000 people boycotted sugar, causing sales to decrease significantly

• Individuals such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Hannah More played crucial roles in the abolition movement

• Mary Wollstonecraft was a pioneering feminist

  • She was also an influential campaigner for the abolitionist movement

  • Her most famous work was ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’, in which she compared the experiences of women in British society to those of enslaved African people

• Hannah More publicised the abolitionists’ campaign with her poem, 'Slavery, a Poem' (1788),

  • The poem told the troubles of an enslaved woman, who was abused and had her children taken from her and sold to other plantations

  • This was a theme repeatedly emphasised by female campaigners

• Middle-class women showed their support for the movement by buying jewellery such as Wedgwood’s cameos (Josiah Wedgewood was an abolitionist)

  • These featured the image of a kneeling, chained, enslaved person with the inscription ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’

• Working-class women played a key role in abolition through boycotting sugar and rum made using enslaved labour

• Lady Margaret Middleton is credited with encouraging both Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce to take up the abolitionist cause

  • Lady Middleton had no direct political power

  • She had to persuade male friends to take up the cause instead

• Women were not invited to sign the thousands of petitions organised by the Abolition Society

  • Even though in 1788, there were 206 female members of the Society

Petitions and campaigns within parliament

• There was an increasing number of signatures on petitions sent to Parliament

  • This demonstrates the success of early abolitionists in gaining support for the movement

• The first petition sent to Parliament on the issue of abolition included just 273 signatures in 1783

• Nine years later, in 1792, it is estimated that nearly 1.5million people had signed petitions against the trade in enslaved Africans

  • This number demonstrated that public opinion was turning firmly against the trade

• Abolition became the first nationwide petitioning campaign

  • This was impressive given the organisational challenges of gathering signatures on a petition in the 18th Century

• During 1787 and 1788, over 100 petitions containing 60,000 signatures were presented to parliament in just three months 

  • Nearly every town and city in the country organised a petition against the slave trade

• In parliament, William Wilberforce was the key driving force behind the abolition campaign

  • In 1789, Wilberforce spoke to parliament for over three and a half hours in favour of abolition

    • This initially had an impact, with parliament determining to hold hearings into the trade

    • This was delayed due to the events of the French Revolution